Monday, December 3, 2012

The Touch of God at Christmas

The Touch of God at Christmas This is from a 60 Minutes broadcast
from a few years ago. It’s an excerpt of what Harry Reasoner said around
Christmas time that I want you to hear. Listen carefully – he said:

Eleven years ago I did a little Christmas piece and it seemed like a good idea
to repeat it. The basis for this tremendous burst of buying things and gift
buying and parties and near hysteria is a quiet event that Christians believe
actually happened a long time ago. You can say that in all societies there has
always been a midwinter festival and that many of the trappings of our
Christmas are almost violently pagan. But you come back to the central fact of
the day and the quietness of Christmas morning, the birth of God on earth.

It leaves you only three ways of accepting Christmas. One is cynically, as a
time to make money and endorse the making of it. One is graciously, that’s the
appropriate attitude for non-Christians who wish their fellow citizens all the
joys to which their beliefs entitle them. And the third, of course, is
reverently.

If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the
form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day. It is a startling idea, of
course. The whole story that a virgin was selected by God to bear his son as a
way of showing his love and concern for man. It’s my guess that in spite of all
the lip service given to it, it’s not an idea that has been popular with
theologians. It is somewhat an illogical idea and theologians like logic almost
as much as they like God. It’s so revolutionary, a thought that it probably
could only come from God that is beyond logic and beyond theology. It is a
magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God and almost nobody has any real
idea what he is like, and the truth is that among men the idea of seeing God
suddenly and standing in a very bright light is not necessarily a completely
comforting or appealing idea.

But everyone has seen babies and almost everyone likes them. If God wanted to
be loved as well as feared, He moved correctly, for a baby growing up learns
all about people. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of man, He moved
correctly, for the experience of birth and family-hood is the most intimate and
precious experience that any of us will ever have.

So it comes beyond logic. It is either a falsehood or it is the truest thing in
the world. It is the story of the great innocence of God the baby. God in the
power of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart that if it is not true
to Christians, then nothing is true.

So if a person is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it. And
maybe on some given Christmas some final quiet morning, that touch will take.
The touch of God coming into this world as a vulnerable baby.